At The Tsikata Trial

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday, 19 July 2006
The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Joe Ghartey, yesterday concluded his address before the Accra Fast Track High Court where Tsatsu Tsikata , former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), is standing trial for allegedly causing financial loss to the state.

Immediately the Attorney General finished addressing the court, Major R.S. Agbenator (rtd), counsel for Tsatsu, indicated to Mrs. Justice Henrietta Abban, the trial judge, that the defence would like to address the court on some of the issues that had been raised by the prosecution in its address.

The judge obliged, saying, “I will use my discretion to grant you this even though you have not got the right to reply to the AG’s address.” she subsequently adjourned the case to today to enable the defence to address the court on those issues.

Tsikata has been charged with three counts of causing financial loss of about ў2.3 billion to the state through a loan he, acting on behalf of the GNPC, guaranteed for Valley Farms Limited, a private cocoa producing company, and another count of misapplying public funds.

Valley Farms contracted the loan from Caisse Centrale, now Agence Francaise De Development (AFD), in 1991, but defaulted in the payment thus compelling GNPC, which acted as guarantors, to pay the loan in 1996.

Mr. Tsikata has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and is on a self-cognisance bail.

Concluding his address, Mr.Ghartey told the court that Mr. Tsikata was not permitted by law to use funds of a public corporation to acquire shares in a private establishment. He pointed out that the accused had not denied the fact that ў20 million was used to acquire shares from Valley Farms.

“He used GNPC funds for a wrong purpose hence the charge of misapplying public funds. Our case is that the accused was charged with respect to the payments that he authorised in October, November and December of 1996 and not any guarantee payment,” the AG said.

“The entirety of his act formed the basis of his prosecution,” he added.

In a related development, the Court of Appeal has unanimously dismissed Mr. Tsikata’s motion that sought to invite the second highest court of the land to set aside an order granting immunity to the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The three-member panel, presided over by Mr. Justice S.K Anim, said the court did not find any merit in Mr. Tsikata’s application and added that the IFC within the meaning of Rule 67 of the courts’ rules was not a party in the action.

The court said that the Order 31 relied on by Mr. Tsikata to invoke the court’s inherent jurisdiction to get the IFC to appear in the substantive appeal over the immunity issue, did not apply in criminal cases but rather to civil appeals.

“The application before this court was not brought under any known rule and counsel had admitted this when he moved the motion and even said that the IFC is a desired or desirable witness that is why we want them to come,” the court said,quoting Mr Tsikata’s counsel.

The court is expected to hear the substantive appeal on July 24.

The other Justices on the panel were K. Twenebaoh-Koduah and F. Kusi Appiah.